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International Journal of English and Studies (IJOES) SP Publications International Journal Of English and Studies (IJOES) An International Peer-Reviewed Journal ; Volume-3, Issue-7, 2021 www.ijoes.in ISSN: 2581-8333; Impact Factor: 5.421(SJIF) RESEARCH ARTICLE Reclaiming the Elusive Shadaj: Female Vocalists’ Search for a Room in the World of Hindustani Classical Music ____________________________________________________________________________ Rebanta Gupta Postgraduate Student, Department of English, Presidency University (Kolkata) ____________________________________________________________________________ Abstract: Keywords: Hindustani Classical Music, The paper tries to discuss the ingenious khayal, ghazal, tradition, Virginia Woolf, artistic imprints left by the two premier patriarchy. female Hindustani Classical vocalists- Begum Akhtar and Kishori Amonkar, who Introduction: tried to create an ontological space of their In this world dominated by own in the phallocentric musical discourse. patriarchal institutions, females have almost The paper utilizes the concept of an always occupied a secondary position; their alternative literary space for females sagas, voices, and achievements have been expounded by Virginia Woolf in her essay reduced to mere footnotes on the margins of A Room of One’s Own (1929), to analyze history written with the phallic stylus. the efforts made by these two songstresses Female presence in the arts and cultural to create a subjective space of their own in discourses has been considered pernicious, the world of Hindustani Classical Music. as if they are a redundant “excess” that The musical techniques and politics used by plagues the system. Females have always Akhtaribabi and Amonkar have been tried to reclaim their lost homes within discussed to show their struggle against the these discursive systems; feminist musical tradition, which is like an ever- movements have shaken the planet, under observant paternal figure, and they tried to the leadership of eminent female activists, deviate from the tradition by paradoxically from Mary Wollstonecraft to Simone de acknowledging its traces in their renditions. Beauvoir. But the struggle continues, as Besides using Woolf’s ideas, the essay also women are continuously trying to combat tries to implement Hélène Cixous’ idea of patriarchal hegemony, and establish a the écriture féminine, to underscore the metaphorical room of their own, that female vocalists’ search for a feminine resembles the elusive shadaj or the fleeting musical language, which is divorced from and sequestered tonic of the Hindustani patriarchal domination. Therefore, the Classical Raga Marwa. This paper tries to paper uses literary tropes to understand explore the ingenious imprints left by two musical mechanisms and politics of eminent female vocalists of Hindustani subjectivity. Classical Music, Begum Akhtar and ISSN: 2581-8333 Copyright © 2021 SP Publications Page 187 SP Publications International Journal Of English and Studies (IJOES) An International Peer-Reviewed Journal ; Volume-3, Issue-7, 2021 www.ijoes.in ISSN: 2581-8333; Impact Factor: 5.421(SJIF) RESEARCH ARTICLE Kishori Amonkar, who have successfully own and control property, their financial established their identity in a patriarchal position remained deplorable, as they had musical atmosphere, through the lens of been regarded as objects of child-bearing Virginia Woolf’s influential feminist essay and ignorance; they were the quintessential A Room of One’s Own (1929). Like models of inferiority who inflated Virginia’s quest for a room in the masculine superiority. She, therefore, phallocentric literary space, Akhtaribai and advances her thesis, “All I could do was to Amonkar have also searched for an offer you an opinion upon one minor point- ontological space of their own in the a woman must have money and a room of musical ecosystem. her own if she is to write fiction” (Woolf 4). The names of the four Marys become Virginia’s Room: An Exposition: universal signifiers for the feminine Two lectures by the celebrated condition, and Woolf reflects on the modernist writer Virginia Woolf, delivered misogynistic, patriarchal representations of at the University of Cambridge’s Newnham women. The absence of notable female College and the Girton College in October writers in the fecund literary climate of the 1928 constitute the kernel of A Room of Elizabethan Period, and the scarcity of One’s Own. This text argues for the information regarding the middle-class establishment of a literal as well as a women of that epoch, instigate her to figurative space for the female writers in a construct the hypothetical character of literary world colonized by men. Woolf Judith Shakespeare, who is the antithesis of creates her fictional alter-ego- “Call me the literary giant William Shakespeare, and Mary Beton, Mary Seton, Mary Carmichael she narrates her fictional heart-wrenching or by any name you please” (Woolf 5), to saga. Judith had literary potential, which address the question of women writing was prevented from blossoming by the fiction. She analyzes women’s secondary male establishment. position in society, how men’s colleges have always invited wealthy sponsors, Aphra Behn, however, had been while women’s colleges struggled to raise able to decolonize her mind from the funds; how the impoverished females are patriarchal specter. As a widowed middle- unable to leave behind wealth for their class woman trying to make ends meet, she daughters, since entrepreneurship, which is could produce impeccable literary works. required for amassing wealth, is at Woolf discusses the women novelists’ rise loggerheads with the child-rearing duty. in the nineteenth century; George Eliot, Despite the Married Women’s Property Act Emily and Charlotte Brontë, and Jane of 1882, which granted married women to Austen used the novel, a new literary form, ISSN: 2581-8333 Copyright © 2021 SP Publications Page 188 SP Publications International Journal Of English and Studies (IJOES) An International Peer-Reviewed Journal ; Volume-3, Issue-7, 2021 www.ijoes.in ISSN: 2581-8333; Impact Factor: 5.421(SJIF) RESEARCH ARTICLE to express themselves and their subjective to the Western modal melodic system). This utterances. Woolf aspires to rekindle the vibrant musical tradition (which manifests Judith resting inside all women, by itself in different classical forms like khayal providing women with a space crafted by and dhrupad, and semi-classical forms like economic independence and privacy- thumri, dadra, chaiti, kajri, and tappa) “For Woolf, the claims its origin in the ancient scriptures or professional woman writer was the the shastras, and its basic principles were one who could be independent of earmarked in treatises like Bharata’s men, who earned her keep by means Natyashastra (second-third century BCE) other than menial labor or being a and Dattila’s Dattilam (around third-fourth dependent wife. The literary century BCE). In a religious and spiritually profession for a woman has come to minded country like India, the female deity represent in our current formation of Saraswati is believed to have been the canon an escape from social presiding over the faculties of knowledge, roles and norms, whether the escape art, wisdom, and especially music. Thus, is complete, as in the case of Behn, Indian music has a feminine Symbolic or partial, in the simple attainment Other governing its dynamics. She is the of a quiet room” (Ezell 586). consort of Lord Brahma, “the celestial Woolf’s thesis about the literary room for creative symphony when Brahma created women would be used as a trope in the the universe” (Wikipedia). With a lute-like following sections, to discuss the search for instrument veena, she sits on her a space for the females in the world of magnificent lotus bed, and the music Hindustani Classical Music. practitioners pay homage to her occasionally. However, despite this Women and Hindustani Classical Music: feminine antecedent, Indian musical Hindustani Classical Music or tradition has been overtly phallocentric, as Shastriya Sangeet is the art music prevalent innumerable constraints have been imposed in the Northern parts of India, in the states upon women regarding learning and adorning the Indo-Gangetic Valley, like performance of classical music. One Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Madhya example can be cited in this regard; Ustad Pradesh, etc. This eclectic musical tradition, Bande Ali Khan, the celebrated beenkar which is distinct from its southern (player of lute-like instrument veena) of the counterpart, Carnatic Classical Music, dates prolific Kirana Gharana in the nineteenth back to the twelfth century BCE, and it century, trained his two daughters in revolves around the axis called the “Raga” playing the rudra veena, and they had been (a melodic musical mode, somewhat similar married off to two beenkars- Ustad ISSN: 2581-8333 Copyright © 2021 SP Publications Page 189 SP Publications International Journal Of English and Studies (IJOES) An International Peer-Reviewed Journal ; Volume-3, Issue-7, 2021 www.ijoes.in ISSN: 2581-8333; Impact Factor: 5.421(SJIF) RESEARCH ARTICLE Zakiruddin Khan and Ustad Allabande childbearing from finer skills of influencing Khan, so that they could perform alongside outcomes of significance” (Sengupta 124). their illustrious husbands. But the In ancient India, the courtesans (the prejudiced husbands forbade their wives to devadasis and the kothewalis) were freed touch the instrument, as the very notion of from domestic regulations; they were the women hailing
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